


gravity

by kinases



Series: ∞ [1]
Category: Infinite (Band)
Genre: Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-28
Updated: 2016-10-28
Packaged: 2018-08-27 10:44:04
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,472
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8398531
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kinases/pseuds/kinases
Summary: sunggyu learns what it means to fall.





	

**Author's Note:**

> a companion fic to [daydream](http://archiveofourown.org/works/8509822) ♡

Sunggyu’s always thought that it was some kind of curse, that it was a fault of his that he wasn’t like everyone else, that he didn’t go weak in the knees and blind with need every month. But he hadn’t always thought of it that way, when he hadn’t even thought he was anything out of the ordinary at first.

They had scared him at first, the fevers he’d used to get every month, and it was almost like he would get sick on the clock with pinpoint accuracy. On some days, he would be fine, and he’d go to school and joke around with his friends with only a tingling sensation in the back of his mind, a light buzzing that he could never seem to shake off. But on other days, he’d be in bed, curled into himself, wondering why his head hurt so much and why his stomach ached and why everywhere, from the tips of his fingers to the soles of his feet, felt like it was on fire.

And for some reason, he’d slipped his hand down his pants past the waist of his sweatpants, and for some reason, he’d been wetter than he’d ever been before. It had been so unbelievably easy for him to get himself off then, far easier than any of the times he’d imagined faceless bodies and hands stroking across the planes of his chest and across his stomach. But he hadn’t thought much of it then, had chalked it up to his typical teenage hormones when the next day he’d been back to normal, laughing like nothing had happened at all when in reality everything had happened. There was nothing different about the way he’d felt in the morning, about the way he’d carried himself, even about the way he’d smelled to others.

It wasn’t even until the third year of high school, when they’d all had to get tested before their university entrance examinations for vaccinations and everything else, that he’d found out that he wasn’t a beta like he and his family and everyone around him had thought.

He remembers staring at the printout every student had gotten in the nurse’s office in shock—disbelief, confusion, anger—and he remembers pushing back past the other students in line to demand to see the nurse again. He remembers being sent back to the back of the line, and he remembers how jittery his legs were when he’d had to wait all over again. He remembers saying to the nurse, as politely as he could muster, that he thought she’d made a mistake, and if she could please print him out a correct sheet, he’d be so grateful. He remembers the way she’d taken his sheet of paper from him, the way she’d checked his records against what was in the computer, the way she’d passed it back to him, shaking her head and furrowing her eyebrows.

His throat had gone dry, then, and he’d—somehow, by some dumb stroke of luck—managed to croak out, “Are you sure?” because he’d never even felt like one, never even _thought_ that he could be one, not when he’d lived out seventeen entire years of his life without incident, without being violently attacked like so many people in his year had been, without having to face the reality of who this flimsy sheet of paper said he was.

And the look in her eyes had been sympathetic, pitying, almost, when she’d looked back at the computer and up at him and said, “I’m sorry. This might come as a shock for you, but the tests show what they show, and yours show that you are an omega.”

He now knows why he’d woken up panting in the middle of the night and feeling like his throat was sandpaper, why he’d felt the urge to go up to a certain few of his classmates and put his head on their shoulders, why he’d always felt like there was missing from him and within him and inside him, though, and nothing is the same anymore.

 

That new guy doesn’t even need to be there for a week before Sunggyu knows that they won’t get along. If he’s being honest with himself, he’s only jealous and selfish—jealous that there’s another vocalist with such a good voice just months after he’s joined the company, selfish that he wants to keep the light for himself, so that he can improve in the eyes of their trainers. But he’s rarely honest with himself, so he keeps letting himself sit in the corner and watch the new guy flit around and sling his arms around the others’ shoulders like he’s their oldest friend. He’s too friendly, too open, and that might be a good thing if he’s here to have a picnic in the park, but he’s a trainee now, and with that come the rules and guidelines.

The first day he’d been there, he’d hopped up to Sunggyu—and Sunggyu had noticed, with no small amount of pride, that he was just that bit taller than the guy—and extended a hand and said, “I’m Nam Woohyun, it’s nice to meet you all, I’m new here!”

Sunggyu had taken his hand then, had noticed that the palm of his hand and his fingers were coarse, had brushed off the thought for another day when he’d gotten more than two hours of sleep the night before. He’d smiled as genuinely as he could, hoping that Woohyun wouldn’t pick it up, and said, “Kim Sunggyu. I’ll look forward to it.”

Sunggyu watches Woohyun more than he watches any of the others. Dongwoo and Howon he trusts to keep themselves on their toes, to keep themselves motivated to become better even if no one else will. But Woohyun’s a loose cannon, and Sunggyu doesn’t know just what he’s like when he’s actually trying. he hasn’t cared enough to look through Woohyun’s trainee file, but it’s not like he really needs to, when Woohyun’s already told him about everything that matters the most to him.

(He’s from Seoul, his blood type is B, his birthday is the eighth of February—Woohyun’s told him anything and everything there is to know. except just one thing, but Sunggyu thinks it’s pretty obvious in the way that Woohyun doesn’t smell much like anything at all, doesn’t smell the musty edge he’s learned to associate with his own scent, doesn’t smell the sharp undertone that Howon brings with him whenever he walks into a room, so he doesn’t even need to ask Woohyun what he is when it’s obvious he’s a beta like Dongwoo.)

It’s something Dongwoo and Howon have laughed at him for before, how he’s still able to follow their movements and steps even though his eyes are so small. Sunggyu laughs along with them, primarily because he knows they’re grateful for that, but also because he knows they don’t really mean it in a malicious way—they’re just joking around with him in the same way Sunggyu makes jokes about how short Dongwoo is or about how Howon’s eyebrows look like they’re ready to take flight on any given day. It’s lighthearted between them, and it always has, until Woohyun comes in.

Woohyun, with his snaggle teeth and a too-bright smile. Woohyun, with his prickly personality and his constantly joking manner. Woohyun, the one that Sunggyu can’t clearly make a judgment on. So Sunggyu keeps watching him, tracing the paths that his body makes across the practice room floor, tracing the movement of his hands when he’s going over some chords, and pretends he doesn’t.

 

Myungsoo is exactly what an omega should be, Sunggyu thinks. He’s pretty, and they all know it. How could they not, when they can all see the way Myungsoo’s eyelashes are dark and heavy against the paleness of his skin whenever he blinks, or the way his tongue flicks out to lick at his lips, the curve of his cupid’s bow distracting beyond anything else, or the way his entire face crinkles up when he laughs like any joke is the funniest thing he’s ever heard.

And it isn’t just Myungsoo's physical appearance—it’s in the way he carries himself and in the steps that he takes, purposeful and intentional, but still looking like he’s doing it effortlessly. It’s in the way he leans closer to anyone he’s speaking to, angling his entire body so that no one feels left out and unwelcome, and it’s in the way that he’ll drape himself over anyone who’s willing to be clamped on like a vice grip.

Sunggyu doesn’t have any of that. He’s poked at his own cheeks far too often in the mirror not to be keenly aware that he and Myungsoo have fewer in common than they have differences. He’s soft curves where Myungsoo is hard edges, and he doesn’t think that that will ever change, from the angles of their jaws to the planes of their stomachs to the lines of their legs.

He doesn’t envy Myungsoo, though, when every month he has to shuffle, red-faced, out of their dorm with a duffel bag slung around his shoulders. Sunggyu knows he hates it, that he’s embarrassed by it, that he would rather lay down with his head in Dongwoo’s lap and his legs stretched out across Sungjong’s stomach and watch reruns of Running Man with them. They’re all conscious of the fact that Myungsoo hates attention, and he hates this kind of attention the most, so none of them mention the three days Myungsoo misses, continuing conversations and jokes like he hadn’t been gone at all in the first place.

Sungyeol had volunteered to help Myungsoo out at first, but Sunggyu’s heard that it had been so bad for Sungyeol, the beta unwilling to help Myungsoo the way anyone else would’ve been willing to do so. He’s heard that Sungyeol had ended up just leaving the hotel and ordering chicken by the bucketful, locking himself in the bathroom and playing games on his phone during waves. He’s heard that Myungsoo had had to tap on the door, a quick succession of knocks, to let Sungyeol know that he was done, with apologies quick on his lips, and that Sungyeol had just pulled Myungsoo’s head into his lap and stuck a chicken wing into his mouth and told him to shut up.

It really doesn’t seem that bad, Sunggyu thinks. It’s just like having a personal butler, someone to feed you chicken wings and to wipe your face clean of sweat, with no strings attached. But he knows Myungsoo would want anything more than to sneak out of the dorm early in the morning so no one will see him leave, and he knows that even when Myungsoo finishes a heat early, he doesn’t go home until it’s so late at night that everyone’s already asleep.

Except when the front door creaks open at three in the morning and Myungsoo pokes his head in, toeing his shoes off before kicking them into the pile where all of their sneakers and boots are, Sunggyu is there to take his duffel from him and rub a fond hand through his hair and tell him that it’s okay to sleep now. Myungsoo always tries to protest, the clothes inside the duffel are heavy with the smell of Myungsoo’s heat, and it fills the bathroom with its sweetness when Sunggyu upends the duffel so he can soak all the clothes in water just to get all the stains out.

Sunggyu knows he doesn’t have to do this. It’s Myungsoo’s responsibility to take care of himself and his body and everything else that’s associated with having three days a month where he’s completely incapacitated, but Sunggyu wants to help him out in any way that he can. Myungsoo’s tried to tell Sunggyu to just leave him alone so he can wash his own clothes and change his own sheets before, but one of Sunggyu’s greatest traits in his own view is that he’s persistent, and there’s really nothing Myungsoo can do to sway Sunggyu’s path when he’s already decided.

 

No one ever said being a leader would be easy. Sunggyu knows that. He’d be stupid if he’d ever considered for a split second that it would be a simple thing to do, a walk in the park. He knows it’s even harder being a member, let alone the leader of seven boys, when he’s an omega, with all of the burdens and extra baggage that carries with it.

It’s not like it’s something that he really wants to keep a secret: it’s just that he doesn’t really see the necessity in correcting people when they assume otherwise. Even before debut, some of the other trainees have come up to him and clapped him on the shoulder and said, “Wow, it’s good you’re a beta. That’s really safe, unlike—” and this is where they’d looked around quickly, just to make sure no one was around, where they’d leaned in just a little bit closer, where they’d whispered, like it was just between them, “Howon.”

But the thing is, Howon is actually safe around him the way he wouldn’t be around any other omega. Sunggyu doesn’t know what it is about him, but nothing about him screams omega. Once, Dongwoo had leaned in so close that the tip of his nose was pressed right up against the crook of Sunggyu’s neck and he’d breathed in, had inhaled a huge gulp of air, and Sunggyu had felt the coldness on his neck when Dongwoo had shifted away so he could cock his head at Sunggyu and ask, “Hyung, why don’t you smell like anything?”

Dongwoo had been the first one Sunggyu’d told, whispered in the dark of night when no one else was around, when they’d had to share four cramped bunk beds in an even more cramped room with some other trainees. Dongwoo hadn’t believed it at first, at least not until Sunggyu’s heat hit and he’d slumped against the door of their room after practice was over late into the night and Dongwoo had rushed over to help him up. “See?” Sunggyu had croaked, grinning in a way that had made Dongwoo want to smack it off his face. “I told you.”

Myungsoo knows because—Sunggyu doesn’t even know how Myungsoo knows. It’s probably because he’s so perceptive, those eyes of his so piercing in a way that sometimes makes Sunggyu’s skin crawl. and if Myungsoo knows, Sungyeol and Sungjong both know. If Sungjong knows, then Howon knows. But that’s where it ends—Sunggyu has no idea who even knows and who doesn’t, but he doesn’t really care that everyone seems to know except for Woohyun. He feels, with just a tinge of guilt, that he should tell Woohyun some day so he doesn’t think that Sunggyu’s a beta like him for too long. But then he remembers just the latest way Woohyun’s managed to step on his toes by taking his socks and hanging them out of the window, and that tinge of guilt disappears into the air.

They’re preparing for debut now, their twelve-hour dance practices seeming to do more harm than good by now. Sunggyu watches them, watches as Sungjong has to lean against the wall to catch his breath after another set, watches as Howon tries to massage his calves to get all of the soreness out before starting again. He watches as Myungsoo curls into himself in a corner during one of their few breaks with a cold towel on his face, watches as even Dongwoo is silent, the corners of his mouth turned down. He watches as Sungyeol wraps some gauze around his ankle and brushes off their dance trainer’s half-hearted concerns, watches as Woohyun steps directly into Sunggyu’s line of vision when it’s one in the morning and they’re all tired and says, “Let’s do another one.”

Woohyun doesn’t joke around anymore, Sunggyu notices. He doesn’t laugh as brightly as he used to, doesn’t laugh at all anymore, really. Sunggyu wonders if this is the real Woohyun, if the Woohyun that he’d hated in the past for not trying hard enough was just an act he’d put on. Sunggyu wonders if he’d hated Woohyun for no reason at all, and just the thought is enough to make his stomach turn, and oddly, he feels like he’s about to be sick.

There’s a ringing in the back of his head and his blood is rushing through his ears and his last thought before he sees the world spin before his eyes is _shit, did it come early this time?_

Sunggyu wakes up to the beeping of machines, the white and sterile walls of a hospital room greeting him. He’s disoriented for half a second before everything comes rushing back to him—Woohyun’s eyes when he’d looked right at Sunggyu and told him to go again, the way he’d felt like throwing up, how his head had felt like it was about to be split right open. He pushes himself upwards onto his elbows, and it’s only then that he notices a head of hair pillowed on the edge of his bed next to him.

Sunggyu pauses for just a moment before he’s prodding at the head, and Woohyun blinks blearily up at him, squinting in the sunlight before realization flashes in his eyes. He’s in the same clothes he was in the night before, Sunggyu thinks, and before he can stop himself, the first words out of his mouth are, “Did you even go home last night, Nam Woohyun?”

Woohyun blinks at him again, and by now he looks like he’s just trying to blink the sleep out of his eyes. Sunggyu isn’t surprised—Woohyun is always one of the hardest ones to wake up in the morning, and Sunggyu practically has to wrestle him to get him to wake up. “Why are you asking me that?” Woohyun’s eyes narrow, and it’s a strange look on him. Sunggyu isn’t used to this level of intensity in Woohyun’s gaze, is only used to a fleeting impression of flightiness. “Are you okay, hyung?”

“I’m fine.” Sunggyu cracks his neck a few times, tries all of his fingers out again just to make sure they all work, and once he’s done checking that he’s fine, he smiles as cheekily as he can at Woohyun. “Hey, answer my question, did you even go home last night? Or did you chase the ambulance here?”

“No, I didn’t. To both.” Woohyun’s answer is short and curt, and Sunggyu would be more offended if he cared more, but he’s tired. Then Woohyun pauses and swallows and Sunggyu wonders why he’s taking so damn long just to say something when Woohyun finally opens his mouth and says, in a voice lower and quieter than Sunggyu’s ever heard on him before, “Hyung, I didn’t know you were an omega.”

Sunggyu is suddenly uncomfortably aware that there’s a stench hanging in the air, one that he’s learned to associate with the two days of every month his palms get sweaty and his pants get tight and he wants nothing more to crawl into a hole and hide—he’s gotten good at repressing the part of him that tells him that he needs to find the nearest alpha’s knot. Sunggyu looks down at his fingers, watches the way his skin, already pale, matches the off-white of the hospital sheets. “Yeah. Sorry I didn’t tell you. I figured you already knew. Or someone already told you.”

Woohyun’s still quiet, so Sunggyu tries again. “Hey, it’s not a big deal, I really don’t care who knows and who doesn’t. I don’t hate you or anything. If you’d asked, I would’ve told you. Are we okay?”

Woohyun nods, short. He leans his head back onto the sheets and he licks his lips—they’re dry, chapped, and Sunggyu’s about to reach down for his bag to pull out some lip balm when he remembers he doesn’t have anything with him right now. “But I share a room with you, hyung, I should’ve known—”

“Oh, that.” Sunggyu always goes home during the nights he has his heat—it’s usually only one night, anyway, when it only lasts a day, the night, and then halfway through the next day. It’s not that he’s scared of Woohyun or anyone else jumping him, it’s just that he feels more comfortable in the sheets that smell like himself. “Yeah, I just go home for the night. It’s just easier that way.”

“But what about during the day? I couldn’t—I don’t even smell you that much.”

“Deodorant,” Sunggyu replies, quickly. He’s always tried to maximize how much time he could spend in the practice room with them all to make up for the other days he might have to take the day off because it gets too much. But he knows he has to be conscientious of the others, so he just smears as much deodorant as he can onto himself before grabbing the smelliest shampoo he can find. And honestly, it’s worked pretty well so far. “And body wash. And cologne. So much cologne.”

Woohyun’s quiet again. Sunggyu doesn’t like this Woohyun—this Woohyun unsettles him. Sunggyu pats Woohyun’s head, and Woohyun looks up at him. “Hey, cheer up. At least Dongwoo and Sungyeol are still betas, that’s for sure. You still have them. ”

Woohyun looks at him in confusion—Sunggyu has no idea why—before he swallows thickly, scrambling to his feet. “I’m—I’m not—never mind, hyung, I think the others want to see you.”

Sunggyu watches him push open the door of his room in the grey tank top and black basketball shorts he’d worn last night, and even as the others storm in, squabbling for his attention and asking him five different times if he’s alright, Sunggyu wonders just why the side of the bed next to him feels so empty.

 

Out of all of them, Sunggyu would say that Howon is the best drinker. It’s not really surprising, considering how stocky he is—he’s probably built up a hell of a tolerance throughout the years, anyway. And then it’s Woohyun, damn his tolerance too, downing shots of soju like it does nothing at all to him. Then Dongwoo and Sunggyu, then Sungyeol and Sungjong. But the worst of them all is easily Myungsoo.

Myungsoo is a shitty drunk. He’s always the first one to turn red whenever they go out, and the way he acts if he’s not already sleeping is even worse. Sunggyu thinks the rest of them are pretty manageable drinkers—Howon’s a sad drunk who spends minutes staring into the bottom of the glasses like they’ll fill up on their own, Dongwoo’s a touchy drunk who plasters himself to the nearest warm body, Woohyun’s an even touchier drunk who seems to always end up with the side of his face on Sunggyu’s thigh, Sungjong’s a happy drunk and Sungyeol’s always the unwitting victim of Sungjong’s requests to go singing.

But Myungsoo’s mean when he’s drunk, and for the thirty minutes or so he’s still awake after downing a bottle or two of soju, Sunggyu is just a little bit afraid of him. It’s honestly pretty funny, Sunggyu admits, that Myungsoo, who’s usually so placid and passive, starts to say things about the other members none of them could have imagined coming from his lips once he has just a few drinks. Sometimes they’ll take bets on who they think is going to be the one that Myungsoo goes after this time—more often than not, it’s Woohyun or Sungyeol.

It’s not funny this time, though, when Sunggyu gets a call from their manager that Myungsoo’s not coming back to the dorm tonight, that Myungsoo’d left the car that was supposed to take him home to the dorm after his filming’s over. Sunggyu listens to the manager despairing over where to find Myungsoo, and when the manager mentions that Myungsoo had been in a mood when he left, Sunggyu knows where to find him.

There’s a small chicken place about two blocks from their dorm. They don’t usually come here too often anymore, now that they’re so close to a comeback, but sometimes, they still talk about that place’s chicken wings with garlic and soy sauce with something like reverence. But more than that, why they really go there is for the half price soju after 10 pm—that had been too good, way too good, for them when they were younger and more willing to suffer through hangovers in the morning.

Myungsoo’s tucked into the end of a bench in a corner of the store, nursing a bottle of soju and picking morosely at a plate of chicken. Sunggyu sits down gingerly when Myungsoo stares up at him like he’s about to run away any moment, but Myungsoo’s eyes are unfocused, and Sunggyu doesn’t think that Myungsoo sees him at all until he speaks up.

“Sunggyu-hyung, I thought you’d never come,” Myungsoo slurs, tracing a finger around the rim of his bottle. It’s his second one—there’s an empy bottle spinning around on the other side of the table, one that’s clearly Myungsoo’s fault. Sunggyu wonders just how he’s this coherent, just how he was going to go home, if he was planning on going home at all.

“Myungsoo.” Sunggyu tries to inflect as much ice as he can into his voice, but something in his chest tightens when he sees the way Myungsoo blinks up at him. “Let’s go home, okay?”

“No, I don’t wanna,” Myungsoo whines, pillowing his head on the table and reaching out to grab at the sleeves of Sunggyu’s sweatshirt. Sunggyu’s quiet, deciding just to let Myungsoo talk, and after a moment, he lifts his head up off his folded arms so he can stare at Sunggyu again. “Hyung, my drama got cancelled.”

“What?” Sunggyu feels like he’s just been punched in the gut, but then all of the pieces start falling into place—why Myungsoo had wanted to leave filming early, why he’d left the car, why their manager had ended up calling Sunggyu at eleven at night to ask him to go find Myungsoo.

“Yep,” Myungsoo mumbles into his arms again. “It’s because I suck.”

“No, it’s not,” Sunggyu tries, reaching out to pat whatever part of Myungsoo he can find. “You’re a good actor, you really are, Myungsoo. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.”

Myungsoo’s silent again, and Sunggyu’s about to reach over so he can pat Myungsoo on the cheek and get him to wake up before Myungsoo lifts his head up and smiles blearily at Sunggyu and says, “It’s okay, hyung, your album failed too.”

Sunggyu freezes. Everyone knows this is a touchy subject with him, one that not even Dongwoo or Woohyun is willing to joke about, and it’s just his luck that this is what Myungsoo decided to go for today. “Myungsoo, it’s really fine, seriously—”

Myungsoo goes on. “Yeah, hyung, it’s alright, we all knew you expected higher sales, but I guess your individual fanbase just isn’t big enough. Maybe the company didn’t mediaplay enough with the album? But I feel like they mediaplayed enough. Or maybe the songs are just really bad? But no, 60 Seconds was good.” Then he looks up at Sunggyu, like he’s just made a huge revelation. “Maybe it’s just you.”

“Maybe it was just you who made your drama fail, then,” Sunggyu snaps before he can hold it back, and then he’s staring at Myungsoo’s wide eyes, and it’s like the world’s stopped around them.

Sunggyu makes it a habit not to get physical with the other members—he doesn’t think that’s a good strategy to follow, especially when being part of a team is more of teamwork and cooperation than it is of one’s individual creativity and talents. But today, he’s had it—he grabs Myungsoo’s wrist, tosses a few twenty thousand won bills on the table, and leads him out of the shop,

Sunggyu knows that he shouldn’t do anything, shouldn’t say anything, since what he does now isn’t going to be remembered at all by Myungsoo. but at the same time, he knows Myungsoo’s responsible—that even though his drunkness could’ve affected how much he said, that if he said it even while drunk, it must’ve been something he’d been rolling over in his brain. And when Sunggyu has Myungsoo tucked into his side in the back of the taxi, he can smell it, the impending heat on Myungsoo’s clothes. Sunggyu thanks the manager that he was able to call him on time.

The morning after is just as awkward as they’d expected it to be. Myungsoo, surprisingly, seems to remember a lot of what he'd said to Sunggyu, and he bows when Sunggyu pushes his chair out from the kitchen table just as Myungsoo’s trying to sneak by on his way out, his duffel bag almost slipping off his shoulders and onto the ground.

“You alone today?” Sunggyu asks, lightly.

“Yeah,” Myungsoo shrugs, worrying his lower lip with his teeth, before his face takes on a familiar and shaky cast. “Hyung, I’m so sorry, I really didn’t mean to—”

“It’s fine, I know you didn’t mean to,” Sunggyu says, reaching out to take Myungsoo’s shaking hand, and he hopes that Myungsoo can tell that the smile on his face is actually genuine. “It’s fine.”

 

It’s late, almost two in the morning, when Sunggyu gets back to the dorm. Filming for Weekly Idol had taken longer than he’d expected, with Hyungdon and Daejoon pulling him out of the third floor basement and into a bar after it ended. He’d protested, but not really, and the two of them knew that, with identical cheshire cat grins splitting their faces.

Sunggyu considers them family by now—he knows they all do, as much as they make fun of him and heckle Woohyun and baby Myungsoo—but there are just some things they don’t need to know, and when they'd asked him if he has anyone special (Hyungdon leers, Daejoon raises his eyebrows suggestively), he’d just shaken his head empathically. They’d poked and prodded at him for some more minutes, but Sunggyu had made up a clearly half-hearted lie about needing to go home for a schedule the next day and left with a promise to keep them updated.

The dorm is dark and quiet when he comes back, and he’s not surprised. Dongwoo always sleeps the earliest, citing his need to be everyone else’s rechargeable battery during the rest of the day, and none of them really complain if that means Dongwoo won’t jump them for too many hours of the night. There’s only the soft blue light of Dongwoo’s nightlight peeking out from underneath the door of his room, and Sunggyu has to resist the urge to open the door to check in on him.

Howon, he knows, is probably in the studio working on some new choreo. He says it’s to keep his muscles limber and his instincts alert, but Sunggyu knows it’s more that he hates being cooped up in a single room for too long without anywhere to go the way he’d be if he were in the dorm. The other three are sleeping when Sunggyu checks in on them, Sungyeol and Myungsoo and Sungjong just lumps in their bunk beds.

Sunggyu gets to his own room, shared with Woohyun, when he pauses. Woohyun’s not sleeping yet, and he can tell by the way the floorboards underneath their closed door are flooded with light. Woohyun looks up when Sunggyu pushes open the door, a notebook resting on his folded knees and a pen between his fingers. “Hey.”

“Hi,” Sunggyu says, and he collapses onto his own bed, rolling around a few times before dragging his arms away from his face so he can look up at Woohyun. “What are you doing?”

“Nothing.” Woohyun shrugs, noncommittal, and Sunggyu doesn’t miss the way Woohyun tries to angle the notebook so that Sunggyu can’t see what’s written on there.

“A new song?” Sunggyu guesses, and he tries to be as discreet as possible when he scoots closer, inching his body forward so he can try to make a grab for the notebook.

“Maybe.” Another shrug, just as ambiguous, and just as fucking annoying as the last one was.

Sunggyu narrows his eyes and decides to make a break for it. He launches himself forward, arms outstretched, but Woohyun dodges, using his forearm to push Sunggyu’s flailing hands away and hiding the notebook under a pile of his own clothes with his other hand. They end up in a mess of limbs, and Sunggyu thinks it might be Woohyun’s foot under his ribs—whatever, he’s pretty sure that it’s his elbow up against Woohyun’s chin.

“Hyung, _stop_. Let go,” Woohyun gasps out, strained from the lack of air getting to his lungs, and Sunggyu considers not doing it before he realizes it’s just as uncomfortable for him as it is for Woohyun. He lets go, and they have to spend a few minutes trying to figure out how to extricate themselves from one another before spending ten minutes actually doing it.

Sunggyu makes sure to give Woohyun his best pout once they’re untangled and lying on their sides in their own beds and facing one another. “Please?”

“No,” Woohyun says, firmly, before kicking at the pile of clothes he’d shoved his notebook into with his feet. Sunggyu eyes the clothes pile longingly, and he wonders what other secrets are in there that Woohyun doesn’t want him to find out about.

“Why?”

Woohyun pauses, and his eyes take on a more distant look when he shrugs again, the effect muted by the fact that he’s lying down and doing it. “I’ll show you when I’m done, hyung. But not now, okay? Please?”

Sunggyu rolls the proposition around in his head a bit before he nods. “Okay, but if you don’t show me when you’re done, I’ll look for it myself. Deal?”

“Alright,” Woohyun agrees, and he takes the pinky Sunggyu offers with his own. “Deal.”

 

They don’t really talk about it. Woohyun has to close Sunggyu’s laptop for him, to stop him from searching himself up on naver more when they both know Sunggyu doesn’t even want to see what’s written there. The others try to console him, Sungjong sneaking into Sunggyu’s room when he’s staring at the wall and thinking so Sungjong can loop his arms around Sunggyu’s shoulders and hold on tight until Sunggyu tells him to get off, Myungsoo and Sungyeol cooking breakfast for Sunggyu when all he wants to do is lie in bed and stare at the ceiling.

He appreciates it, he really does, but it’s not what he needs right now. The words are burned into his eyes and his ears and his memory, and he sees the letters on the back of his eyelids when he closes his eyes to sleep and he hears his own voice saying those words whenever he’s not listening to anything in particular and he can’t stop thinking about how he hadn’t thought much about it at the time, hadn’t expected that it would blow up into something so unexpected.

He knows it’s not really his fault, but he feels sorry anyway. Sunggyu knows there are things he should say and things he shouldn’t say and what he’d said had fallen squarely into the category of things he shouldn’t say. Howon, once, tries to pat him on the back and say that at least it hadn’t been anything worse, and Sunggyu had wondered just who Howon was trying to compare him to. Howon hadn’t tried to make him feel better ever since.

But there’s something he can’t quite put his finger on that’s bothering him, and he feels like the answer is just out of reach but he can’t figure out what it is. He paces around the dorm until Dongwoo asks him if he’s trying to wear the hardwood down until he makes a hole in the flooring, and then he moves to pacing around his room where Dongwoo can’t crack jokes at him anymore. He’d be fine with it any other day, but today, with all of the articles and the accusations and that weird itch again, he’s at his limit.

It’s not until he’s in bed later that night, curled around a pillow with his back to the door, and he hears Woohyun inhale sharply when he pushes open the door and he feels Woohyun crawl over on the mattresses until his chest is flush against Sunggyu’s back and he feels, more than he hears, the way Woohyun’s voice sends vibrations up his spine when he whispers, “Let me help you this time—it doesn’t mean anything—let me just help you.”

Sunggyu knows he’s not in heat yet, the itchiness isn’t intense enough for it to be his heat, but he’s never really had this before. Usually, his two days pass without incident where he spends his days in the practice room and sweats out the worst of it, where he spends his nights at home where no one will be around to judge him, and he can go back to the dorm and catch up on whatever new things Myungsoo does in his sleep or some way Sungyeol’s figured out how to rig the tv set to get all the channels. It’s familiar and comforting, this ritual of his, and it’s been turned on its head.

It’s why he doesn’t have any idea what to do when Woohyun slips his hand underneath the elastic of Sunggyu’s waistband, searching, or when Woohyun’s hips start rolling against his, slow and insistent, or when Woohyun’s teeth graze a path down the back of Sunggyu’s ear to the juncture where his shoulder meets his neck. The best he can do is reach backwards so he can bury a hand in Woohyun’s hair and pull at it whenever what he’s feeling gets to be too much—it’s not a lot, he knows, but judging by the noises Woohyun’s making against the back of his neck, it’s enough.

Sunggyu comes with a shout on his lips, one that’s muffled by the pillow he’s hastily pressed his face into. he lays there for a bit, catching his breath and idly wondering if he’ll ever be able to use this pillow again without being reminded of tonight, until he hears Woohyun pulling his pants back up, feels the warmth of Woohyun’s chest start to move away from him, and he rolls over. Woohyun’s eyes are large and bright in the moonlight that filters in through the window, and there’s a question on the tip of his tongue when Sunggyu pushes Woohyun to lie on his back before he scoots further down his legs.

“You don’t have to,” Woohyun gasps out, hoarse, the first words he’s said since he’d told Sunggyu that it didn’t have to mean anything. Sunggyu hums before he’s pulling Woohyun’s pants back down and leaning down so he can rest his cheek against Woohyun’s thigh.

“You’re right,” Sunggyu agrees, and he hopes the grin on his face looks more sexy than constipated. Woohyun makes a strangled sort of noise when Sunggyu shifts just a bit to the right, and Sunggyu takes that as an affirmative to start. “But I want to.”

They don’t really talk about these times.

They don’t talk about the times that Sunggyu comes to Woohyun in the dead of night, when he rolls over and scoots over onto Woohyun’s side of the bed, when he knows by the hitch in Woohyun’s breathing that he’s not asleep and hasn’t been, when he tucks his head in the crook of Woohyun’s neck and swings a leg over Woohyun’s hip and whispers, “Is this okay?’

They don’t talk about the times when Woohyun lets his hand linger on the inside of Sunggyu’s thigh for longer than what is probably considered friendly, when all the others leave the room with knowing looks and lopsided smirks, when just that touch turns into something electric as soon as it’s just the two of them in the room, when Woohyun absentmindedly brushes a knuckle against the side of Sunggyu’s cheek as they’re picking their clothes back up off the floor.

They don’t talk about the times when Woohyun’s still awake when Sunggyu comes home, when Woohyun’s really somewhere in between awake and asleep but more on the latter end, when Woohyun’s head is on his shoulder and his notebook is held so loosely in his hand that it would be so easy for Sunggyu just to reach over and take it, when Sunggyu does reach over and take it but he doesn’t look inside, when he just closes the notebook that has all of Woohyun’s dreams in it and puts it on the drawer and drapes a blanket over Woohyun’s shoulders.

They don’t talk about the times when Woohyun’s already so close that it would be so easy for him to just come inside, when Woohyun pushes himself off and drags Sunggyu onto his knees so he can watch the way Sunggyu’s lips stretch around him, when all Sunggyu wants to say is, “It’s fine, nothing’s going to happen, it’s not like we’ll have any accidents,” but all he really can say are muffled and choked out half-words half-noises.

They don’t talk about the times when Sunggyu’s lying on his side, placid and content, when Woohyun brings him a warm and damp towel and wipes the sweat from Sunggyu’s forehead and cheeks, then his thighs and stomach, when Sunggyu leans up just as Woohyun’s leaning down, when he catches that instant of alarm before Woohyun turns his face to the side, almost imperceptible enough to have been a natural movement, but just obvious enough that Sunggyu knows what it means when his lips graze over the side of Woohyun’s cheek instead.

(It doesn’t mean anything.)

It’s fine. He gets it. He really does.

They don’t talk about this, either.

 

It’s easy to pretend nothing ever happened. They throw themselves back into preparing for the comeback, and in between yelling at them all to listen up closely to Howon trying to teach them all the dance and Dongwoo trying to get them all to focus in the summer heat, Sunggyu doesn’t have time to think about anything else. He’s not going to think too much about it—he’d known from the start, from the first words Woohyun had whispered into his ear that night.

He’s fine with it, and he hopes that Woohyun can forget about Sunggyu’s lips against his cheek as something he’d done in a moment of lightheadedness. He’s grateful for the distraction when the practice room becomes heavy with the smell of something other than all of their sweat for once, and Myungsoo ducks his head down and tugs the collar of his shirt down and says he’ll have to take the next few days off.

“Are you sure you’re not just saying this to get out of practice? Hey, if you’re getting out of practice, then we all get to get out of it, too, okay? ” Sungyeol teases from where he’d been lying on the hardwood floor, panting, and he stretches an arm out to block Myungsoo’s path when he tries to leave. Myungsoo scowls down at him and kicks at his arm.

“Shut up,” Myungsoo mutters, the light dusting of pink over his cheeks more apparent in the harsh light of their practice room, before he looks back up, and his eyes dart over to where Sunggyu’s half-sitting, half-lying down across Howon’s and Dongwoo’s laps. Sunggyu watches the way Myungsoo’s blush only deepens before he’s turning on his heel and pushing the door open.

He only figures out why Myungsoo’s face was so red when it turns out they really do have practice off for the next few days. Sunggyu’s eyes narrow even more when he closes the door of Howon’s room and says, to the entire room, “He’s not here, either.”

Sungyeol’s eyes, already large and wide, become even larger and wider, and Woohyun uses the back of his hand to push Sungyeol’s jaw back up with an audible click. “Shut it, Lee, otherwise you’re going to catch flies in your mouth and then you won’t have any lines at all,” Woohyun says mildly, trying to keep a straight face, but the self-satisfied curl of his lips is enough for Sungyeol to launch himself at Woohyun’s legs.

“Shut it, Nam, with an attitude like that you won’t ever grow taller at all,” Sungyeol snaps, and the smirk disappears from Woohyun’s face as quickly as it’d appeared.

“You little—”

When they start tearing at each other’s hair and clothes, Sunggyu has to stop himself from grabbing the two of them and throwing them in a room together and leaving them there until they make up. But Sungyeol and Woohyun squabbling like this—it’s just like old times, so he leaves them to it and turns to Dongwoo and Sungjong.

“So,” he says, in as placid a voice he can muster and with as blank of a face he can manage, “what are we going to do to our Howon when he comes back?”

He’ll never admit it to anyone, but the smiles on Dongwoo’s and Sungjong’s faces scare him more than anything their CEO’s ever said to him before.

 

The move is uneventful. It’s not the cathartic, life-changing event they’d all expected it to be when their company had told them that they’d be getting a new apartment right above their old one. “Only because,” their manager had said, a wry smile on his face, “you kids were getting too many noise complaints from your neighbors.”

Woohyun protests at being told to go live upstairs with Sungjong, Sungyeol, and Myungsoo. He’s right, the four of them—Sunggyu, Dongwoo, Woohyun, and Howon—could’ve all shared their old place and just kicked the youngest ones out. “But,” Howon says easily, grinning, “where’s the fun in that? Also, you lost at rock paper scissors. Also, you’re loud.”

It should really only take them a day to clean up, since they’re just going to leave winter coats and boots downstairs, and they’re only going to bring lighter clothes and everyday necessities. it ends up taking them a week because Sungyeol and Howon fight about who gets to keep the game consoles, and Woohyun and Howon fight about who gets to keep the vacuum, and Woohyun and Sungyeol fight about who gets to keep the better microwave before they remember they’re living together now.

Woohyun slinks the entire way to the door with his backpack on his shoulders, his lips downturned into a pout, and Sunggyu follows him out. “Don’t be so dramatic, Woohyun.” Sunggyu says, leaning his head against the doorframe. “You’ll just be upstairs. You can come back always. Please come back. So you can bother Howon and Dongwoo for me.”

Woohyun gives Sunggyu a small smile before his head drops down onto Sunggyu’s shoulder. There’s a question on Sunggyu’s lips—are you okay? what happened? are you actually crying?—but he feels Woohyun’s short and even breaths against his shoulder, feels the way Woohyun’s fingers have a vice grip on the fabric of Sunggyu’s sweatshirt, and he reaches up so he can stroke through Woohyun’s hair.

“You’re fine,” Sunggyu whispers, so quietly Sunggyu almost doesn’t hear his own voice, “We’re just downstairs. We’re right here.”

They stand there for a while, breathing in silence, before Woohyun finally detaches himself and punches Sunggyu lightly in the arm. “Don’t miss me too much,” Woohyun jokes, but the smile on his lips doesn’t quite reach his eyes. “My phone’s always gonna be on if you need to text me, but don’t text me eighty times, alright?”

Sunggyu falls asleep alone for the first time in what feels like an eternity.

 

It’s like they never left, really. Sungjong still leaves his empty mask packets lying around on Sunggyu’s table, and Sungyeol bums around on their couch because the right end of it is sunken in from how often he’s sat on it, and Myungsoo always comes down to shower—“The shower is nicer here,” he’d said, clutching his towel closer to him like a safety blanket, “Stop looking at me like that, Sunggyu-hyung.”

They sometimes sleep over—and it’s weird thinking of any of them sleeping over when they’ve lived in the same place for five years already—but that just rubs it in, how much nothing’s really changed but everything already has, all at once. Because even if they drag the couches off to the sides and bring the mattresses in and lay out the blankets, Sungjong and Sungyeol and Myungsoo and Woohyun wake up in the morning and take the stairs back up to their own place to get ready for the day that awaits them.

One thing Sunggyu will admit, though, is that the other TV set is better. That’s why, whenever he invites himself up to their place, just before he leaves, he’ll turn the channel to the antiques marketplace, pocket their remote control, run back to their own place, and hide it somewhere. and whenever he does that, he’ll count down the seconds until Woohyun slams the door open, and he’ll glance over at the doorway at Woohyun’s crazy eyes and crazier hair and say, mildly, “What’s wrong?”

It’s all useless, though, since Woohyun always finds the remote. no matter how well Sunggyu tries to hide it, Woohyun always finds the remote, even if it’s under Howon’s pile of unwashed clothes, or if it’s behind Dongwoo’s collection of dinosaur plushes, or even if it’s in between the jars of kimchi and the tubs of gochujang in the fridge.

“How,” Sunggyu had breathed out in shock and awe that one time after he’d closed the refrigerator door, so sure that he’d keep their remote from them for at least an hour, “How did you find the remote next to the kimchi? even _I_  forgot where I put it.”

And Woohyun had shrugged and said, like it was the simplest concept in the world that Sunggyu couldn’t yet grasp, “It’s because I know the way you think, hyung. It’s easy.”

 

Sunggyu gets used to sleeping alone, falling asleep to the tick-tock of the clock he still has on the wall. It’s a little bit weird still when he wakes up in the middle of night because it’s too warm, and it always takes a few minutes before he remembers it’s because no one’s there to hog the covers from him. Sometimes he wakes up when it’s already bright outside, and he wonders why he hadn’t woken up before, before he realizes it’s because there isn’t anyone to loop their arms around his neck and hug him so close he can’t breathe. Navigating the space that’s eerily empty now is hard, and now that he has to do it alone, he doesn’t think he can ever really get used to it.

It’s been seven years, the two of them—two years before they’d made their actual debut on stage, and five years after. Sunggyu remembers how he’d used to hate Woohyun, how he’d hated every fiber of his being from the way he gripped the microphone when he sang, to the way he hid his arms behind his back whenever he was standing without anything to do, to the way he did his hair in the morning haphazardly in the bathroom mirror. Sunggyu remembers all of that, and he realizes that he can’t remember a memory he can call back so vividly that doesn’t have Woohyun in it.

He’s fine with the panting gasps against his shoulder, with the fluttering breaths just above his hipbone, with the calloused fingers trailing along the insides of his thighs, with the things they do in the dark where the only witness to it all is the moon. He’s not fine with the reassuring squeezes around his wrist, with the casual leans onto his back, with the lips pressed absentmindedly just behind his ear, with the things that happen after the sun’s risen and there’s nowhere to hide.

Sunggyu’s fine with everything physical that happens, with all of the things his body makes him feel when Woohyun touches him. He’s not fine with the way his palms get sweaty when Woohyun pulls his t-shirt over his head and the wifebeater he’s wearing underneath rides up, or with the way he has to bite his lip to not look like an idiot when Woohyun says something everyone else groans at, or with the way his heart skips a beat when Woohyun smiles that lopsided smile at him. He’s fine with the lust—he’s just not fine with that other emotion.

 

In retrospect, all the signs were there. Sunggyu just chose to ignore them all—whether out of some stupid idiotic lack of self-preservation or an ill-advised desire to fling himself headlong into disaster or even just sheer blindness to the facts, he doesn’t know, but—

He should’ve known that time so long ago, when he’d passed out during practice and the first one to come see him in the hospital was Woohyun. And he hadn’t found out until later, but Woohyun had shoved Dongwoo and Howon and the others to the side and forced his way in after the nurse had said, “He’s fine now, and he’s sleeping. But only one of you can come see him now,” and even when Sunggyu had been dead asleep, he’d sat on the rickety plastic chair and waited for him to wake up. Sunggyu hadn’t noticed it then, hadn’t noticed it even in the months following, but now that he looks back on it, Woohyun had treated him like glass afterwards, gingerly, like he was afraid Sunggyu was going to break if he handled him roughly. They’d used to fight, tossing each other into the corners of the practice room whenever they needed to let off steam, and it had been half playfulness and half typical bored trainee behavior. But then Woohyun had said something about not wanting to make Sunggyu’s aching joints even more achy and Sunggyu had lunged at him, arms outstretched and ready to _go_ , but Woohyun had grabbed him by the elbows and smiled and said, “Really, hyung, let’s stop.” and that was it.

He should’ve known a month ago, when Woohyun had knocked on their door at two in the morning, when Dongwoo was already asleep and Howon was in his room with the music blaring so loudly in his ears he probably wouldn’t even notice an earthquake. Sunggyu had been about to crack some dumb joke about how Woohyun couldn’t stay away for too long, but Woohyun had looked up at him with eyes that had black shadows underneath and said, “Hyung, I can’t sleep,” and Sunggyu had been unable to say no to his unsaid request. He’d walked back into Sunggyu’s room like it was unfamiliar, like he hadn’t slept on those mattresses and sheets for the past few years, like he hadn’t undressed Sunggyu with his eyes and with his hands time and time again. Woohyun had pressed himself up against Sunggyu’s back, his fingers skating over the thin cotton of Sunggyu’s t-shirt, and he’d whispered “I missed you” so quietly Sunggyu didn’t know if those words were meant for his ears. It had taken a long time for Woohyun’s breathing to even out that night, and it had taken even longer for Sunggyu to just let go.

He should’ve known two weeks ago, when Sunggyu had decided tonight would be a good night to go upstairs to bother the kids and he’d bounded up the stairs in his ratty old t-shirt and his ratty old sweatpants and his ratty old sandals. he’d pounded on the door so loudly that when Sungjong had opened the door, a frown creasing his eyebrows, Sunggyu had just reached upwards to smooth his thumbs over Sungjong’s forehead, cheerily chirping that, “Sungjong-ah, if you keep your face like that, you’ll be stuck like that forever.” and Sungjong had somehow managed to know just who it was Sunggyu was after to bother for the rest of the evening because he’d shifted uncomfortably from foot to foot and said, “Sunggyu-hyung, Woohyun-hyung is out with his friends tonight,” and when Sunggyu had stared back at Sungjong, he’d added more slowly, like the afterthought that it very clearly wasn’t, “They’re drinking.” and Sunggyu had continued staring at Sungjong until he’d plastered on the most annoying grin he knew and grabbed Sungjong by the shoulders and jostled him. “What makes you think I’m here for that guy, huh? What if I’m here for you? Huh? What do you have to say for yourself, huh?” They both knew it was a lie, though.

He should’ve known six days ago, when Jieun had brought her kids over and dropped them off with Sunggyu. Not that he minds at all—he loves his nephews probably more than he loves everyone on the planet except for his mom—but he’d still given Jieun a dirty look when she’d cheerfully waved him off at the door and he’d just as cheerfully given her a choice finger where the kids couldn’t see. “I’m not a daycare center,” he’d hissed at her even as one of the kids was hugging his leg and refusing to let go and the other was already halfway up his back. “Maybe not.” she’d shrugged. “But if you won’t do it, I know someone who will.” She’d left, then, and before Sunggyu could even close the door on her, Woohyun had popped up, seemingly out of nowhere, and smiled that same lopsided and snaggle-toothed smile and said, “I heard the kids are here.” Sunggyu barely had time to ask him if his sister had told Woohyun she was coming over before she’d even told Sunggyu when the two of them had launched themselves at Woohyun’s feet, grabbing onto his shorts and begging to be picked up. Woohyun had given Sunggyu a wry grin before hoisting both of them up, one in each arm, and Sunggyu had desperately tried to tell the parts of himself that had immediately melted into a pile of goo to stop feeling whatever they were feeling.

And, God, he should’ve known today, when he’d already kicked Howon and Dongwoo out to sleep upstairs or in the practice room while he got over his heat. He’s not used to it, still, being in one of those fancy suppression rooms: a regular old lock and key on door are all he needs. Sunggyu doesn’t even do anything during his heats anymore—just cooks himself some dumplings and makes himself some scrambled eggs and fried rice just before so he can microwave it all when he needs to in between waves. They’re not even waves, though, more like times when he feels just a little bit more turned on than usual by the memory of rough hands and low voices. It’s more of a minor inconvenience than it is the complete stop that Myungsoo’s heats are, and Sunggyu’s at the point where he really considers himself blessed and lucky. But it’s when there’s a sharp rapping at the door and Sunggyu stupidly pads over in the same clothes he’s been wearing off and on when he’s not in bed or showering and he opens the door because there’s only one person in the entire world who knocks in that tap-tap-tap-tap-tap pattern and Sunggyu would recognize it anywhere.

Sunggyu doesn’t even know why the edges of his vision are getting so blurry and fuzzy and he hasn’t even had anything to drink at all today but his head is swimming and it’s almost like he’s drunk except he knows he isn’t drunk at all although it does smell like alcohol in the room and he’s about to chide Woohyun for drinking tonight because of course it has to be Woohyun who’s drunk if it’s not him, obviously, except he wonders why it’s so weird in his head now that Woohyun is here and it’s never even been weird whenever Woohyun’s here but there’s a small small voice in his head that tells him that he’s never been around Woohyun when he’s in heat and then he asks that voice in his head that it shouldn’t really matter since Woohyun’s a beta and that Woohyun being here during his heat shouldn’t even have that much of an impact on him unless—and he feels the back of his knees hit the edge of a table and Woohyun’s hands are all over him, running all over his stomach and his chest and then moving downwards and when Woohyun pulls down Sunggyu’s shorts he stops thinking and just _feels_.

There’s a sharp sharp pain at the base of his neck and Sunggyu’s jerked out of whatever fog his mind was in at the same time Woohyun pushes Sunggyu away from him like he’s been burned and Sunggyu doesn’t even get the chance to ask Woohyun just what the fuck did he think he was doing because he instantly gets a flash of _oh shit oh fuck why did I do that shit fuck fuck fuck_ and he knows for sure that it wasn’t him who came up with that thought and he looks up and he meets Woohyun’s eyes, wide and trembling and afraid, and he sees how Woohyun’s lips are stained red with blood and it’s then that he realizes that the wetness at the junction of his neck and his shoulder isn’t water or come, that it’s blood, and he reaches a hand up to his shoulder and his fingers come away crimson red and there’s a circular indentation of marks there as well and he puzzles for a split second over what it could be before he finally puts two and two together and he looks at Woohyun with a mixture of shock and anger and despair and he’s glad, really, when Woohyun’s eyes reflect nothing but guilt.

He should’ve known from the very beginning—he should’ve known so many things, should’ve cared more about so many things, should’ve bothered to look at Woohyun’s file and see that he was an alpha from the start, should’ve asked him straight to his face just what he was instead of just assuming and making ill-founded judgments—but he didn’t, and now Sunggyu can’t blame anyone but himself.

 

For the last six hours of Sunggyu’s heat, Woohyun stays. He fucks Sunggyu through it when he has to, pressing at Sunggyu’s shoulder blades when he wants him to turn over, to get on his hands and knees. Sunggyu thinks about telling Woohyun that he’d prefer to see Woohyun’s face through all of this, that it doesn’t even really matter what just happened, that their careers and their relationship and _they_ are all going to be okay because they’ll make it work. But there’s an unspoken desperation in the way that Woohyun’s fingers touch Sunggyu’s shoulder that makes him roll over so he can get to where Woohyun wants him.

In between waves, Sunggyu tries to talk to him. He tries to tell Woohyun everything he’s been thinking about, which isn’t even much at all, just the realization that this is everything he’s wanted even if it did happen too early for his liking. He tries to tell Woohyun about how, when his back is flush with Woohyun’s chest it feels like he belongs there and like there’s no feeling in the world that’s more _right_. He tries to tell Woohyun about how, when they’re together, Woohyun makes him feel like there’s no one else in the entire room, like the world’s been narrowed into a tiny pinprick of space that consists only of Sunggyu.

He tries to tell Woohyun about everything, but when he shifts so he can angle his head backward, ignoring the way the still red and raw marks on his neck ache when he does so, he feels this cascade of deep, deep sadness that makes him want to throw up and cry. And then there are Woohyun’s fingers curling around his wrists and keeping them in front of him and Sunggyu, for some reason, goes back to staring at the same wall he’s been staring at for so long already. He still feels like he needs to get rid of everything in his stomach, but he manages to hold it down, breathing in and out through his nose. He knows, though, that the wetness spreading across the pillow can only be tears, and they’re not Sunggyu’s.

Woohyun leaves after a wave that’s so intense that Sunggyu’s thighs can’t stop shaking, and Sunggyu’s about to reach up and grab his arm so maybe he’ll stay for just a bit longer—Howon and Dongwoo know to stay away for the entire two days, and they won’t be back until the next morning—but Woohyun wrenches his arm out of Sunggyu’s hands and then he’s gone, the door slamming behind him as quickly and as suddenly as that cold despair sets back into Sunggyu’s bones.

He’s halfway across the room before he knows it, and he pushes the door of the adjoining bathroom open, collapsing onto his knees in front of the toilet. He sits there for what feels like hours, and he pillows his head on the toilet seat after he’s done. He breathes in, breathes out, and tries to ignore the way his heart feels like it’s about to beat out of his chest. The taste in his mouth gets to be too much, though, and he hoists himself up to lean on the sink so he can rinse his mouth out. He manages to drag himself back to his bed, his legs feeling like they’re iron blocks, and the emptiness on the other side of the bed is more apparent now that there’s an emptiness in his chest as well.

He hears Dongwoo and Howon’s laughter before he registers that they’re home. Sunggyu blearily blinks awake, and he hears them in the doorway, chatting with each other after spending the entire night coming up with choreography for their comeback next year. The cold weight’s still hanging on him, but he strains as much as he can to hear what Dongwoo’s saying. “He was on the floor when I went up to check if any of the kids were awake, you know? Stupid Woohyun, he always falls asleep in weird spaces.” More laughter, and then it’s quiet.

Sunggyu’s head is spinning with all sorts of questions, but the one he wants to ask the most is how Woohyun’s doing, if he’s alright, if he’s coping or if he’s not, if he’s eaten at all. Dongwoo pokes his head into Sunggyu’s door the way he always does in the morning after a heat, just to see if Sunggyu’s awake or not. And Sunggyu wants so badly to raise his head and tell him good morning, but everything—his head, his body, and somewhere deep inside his chest—hurts too much to do anything at all, so he can’t do anything but watch as the surprised smile on Dongwoo’s face turns into something worse, and his eyes go wide before he’s hurtling back out of the door he came back in from.

Sunggyu doesn’t even have time to ask what’s wrong before Dongwoo pushes the door open again with Howon in tow, and this time, he really tries to say hi to them but his mouth feels like it’s filled with cotton balls and he can’t do anything but make a sort of muffled sound. “Hi,” he manages to whisper, and his throat feels like it’s made of sandpaper. Howon moves so fast that Sunggyu, deliriously, thinks that he’s doing some kind of ridiculous dance move and he wants to open his mouth again to tell him that he’s definitely not doing that in their next song when he realizes they’re staring at him. It’s when Howon’s running out of the room with Dongwoo right behind him and the mark on his neck itches and he tries to reach up to scratch it that Sunggyu figures out just what it was what they were staring at.

There’s a series of loud thumps from upstairs, and Sunggyu barely even has time to try to yell at the kids to shut up before he feels a spike of alarm that’s not his and the door of their own apartment slams back open and Howon’s dragging Woohyun into the room. And when Sunggyu stares at them, Woohyun lifts his head up and his eyes meet Sunggyu’s and there’s a wave of warmth that crashes into him, and he looks back up at Howon, searching. the hardness in Howon’s eyes softens almost imperceptibly, and he tosses Woohyun towards the bed, and the last thing he says before he turns and closes the door back behind him is, “Make this right, you fucker,” and Sunggyu knows it’s not directed at him.

With Woohyun here, it feels like the weight that had been pressing on his chest for the past—however long Woohyun’s been gone—isn’t here anymore, and Sunggyu scoots over to the edge of the bed. his muscles don’t feel like they’re made of lead anymore, and his throat isn’t as scratchy as it was before. “Hey,” he says, poking at Woohyun’s shoulder. “Come here.”

Woohyun doesn’t move, but Sunggyu knows he can hear him from the way his breath hitches and the way he curls into himself that much tighter, still with his face turned into the hardwood floor. He notices, that if he squints hard enough, he can make out a faint redness around Woohyun’s mouth, but he drops down from the bed to land squarely on Woohyun, and he can hear the exhale Woohyun makes when he lands. Woohyun doesn’t fight back the way he normally would, and Sunggyu frowns. He doesn’t feel anything like the way he’d felt when he’d woken up, all lethargic and unhappy, he feels energized, like he could take on the world and win—he wonders why Woohyun’s not feeling the same. “Hey,” he tries again, reaching up to Woohyun’s face to brush his hair from his eyes. “You okay?”

Woohyun stiffens, and there’s a half-second of stillness before Woohyun reaches back to push at Sunggyu’s chest, and Sunggyu’s nearly thrown off. He holds on, wrapping his arms around Woohyun’s neck like it’ll stop the way Woohyun’s body shakes and trembles, and it’s only when Sunggyu manages to stop Woohyun from shifting around and making so much noise that he realizes Woohyun’s crying. he’s making these soft, quiet sniffs, and he covers his face with his arms when Sunggyu tries to lean over. “Woohyun,” Sunggyu says, running a hand through Woohyun’s hair, “It’s alright. Don’t cry.” He tries to crack a smile that Woohyun won’t see. “I hate it when you cry.”

“Shut up, hyung.” Woohyun’s voice is still muffled by his arms when he speaks, but he’s not moving away, and Sunggyu considers it a plus. He’s glad, though, that Woohyun’s voice doesn’t sound that choked, and if he has the energy to tell him to shut up, he’s most likely more than fine. “Why are you even here? Can’t you just leave me alone?”

“Not really,” Sunggyu says lightly, and without venom, he continues, “I can’t really leave my mate, and I think you know that.”

Sunggyu’s ready when Woohyun tries to escape, locking his legs around Woohyun’s waist so that he’s clinging onto Woohyun’s back and wrapping his arms more securely around Woohyun’s front. “Listen up, I don’t know why you didn’t tell me you were an alpha or why the fuck you decided to get drunk last night or why you thought it was a good fucking idea to come here during my heat, but we’re stuck together now, alright?”

And then Woohyun goes quiet and still again, and suddenly all Sunggyu feels from their bond is this coldness, and he realizes that there’s a possibllity he hasn’t even considered, hasn’t even _thought_ of before now, but— “Did you want to get it broken?” Sunggyu whispers, as if it’ll happen if he says it too loudly, and Woohyun hasn’t even replied yet, but he’s already thinking about the months—years—it’s going to take off from the group unless he and Woohyun go underground for a while while they go through with the treatments, but what if rumors start to fly, then their company’s going to have to come clean about everything and he can’t risk what it’ll do to their image—

“No!” Sunggyu’s more than grateful for it when he’s shaken out of his thoughts by Woohyun, his eyes wild and red-rimmed, like he would do anything to stop Sunggyu’s train of thought, his hands gripping Sunggyu’s arms so tightly he knows they’re going to bruise tomorrow, and he can’t help the relief that spreads across his face. “No,” Woohyun says, more quietly. “I couldn’t put you through that. I mean, after all of this.”

Sunggyu pats Woohyun’s cheek absentmindedly, and he pulls away almost as quickly as Woohyun had grabbed him just then—his face is sticky with sweat and dried blood, and Sunggyu gives Woohyun a horrified look before he’s wiping his hand on Woohyun’s t-shirt. Something about that shirt catches Sunggyu’s eye, though, and it’s only when he stares at it for a bit that recognition hits him—it’s the shirt Woohyun had worn that night. Sunggyu’s breath hitches as the images come flooding back, and he knows, by the way Woohyun’s gaze isn’t directed at him but at somewhere in the past, that he feels it too. His tongue feels heavy in his mouth when he asks, “So why didn’t you tell me?”

“What?” Woohyun blinks, as if he’s just been woken from a deep sleep, and he rolls the question around in his mind before he grasps what Sunggyu’s asking. he worries his lower lip with his teeth before he stares at Sunggyu, his fingers fiddling with the worn cotton of his shorts. “I thought you knew at first—I thought you already knew. but then you didn’t know, and I didn’t want to say anything because,” and he swallows, and Sunggyu watches the way his Adam’s apple bobs, “I was scared.”

“Scared of what?” Sunggyu says, and he leans in, just a small craning of his neck, and it might not be his imagination that tells him Woohyun’s leaning in just that bit as well.

Woohyun licks his lips, and his voice is soft and his words are even and Sunggyu knows that he’s spent countless sleepless nights thinking about this question already. “That you wouldn’t like me anymore.”

Sunggyu stares at Woohyun, and he’s aware that his jaw might be dropping open, but he doesn’t care, and he can tell when Woohyun’s about to open his mouth to ask him if he’s alright so he pulls a fist back and punches Woohyun in the chest.

“Ow—what the fuck, hyung?” Woohyun yelps, covering his chest protectively with both hands, and he tries to scoot away once Sunggyu pulls his fist back again.

“You fucking _idiot_ ,” Sunggyu breathes out, and he settles for grabbing Woohyun by the collar of his shirt. “You fucking idiot, are you trying to tell me you didn’t tell me anything because you were scared I wouldn’t like you anymore?” Woohyun’s about to interrupt, he knows, with some stupid retort about how he wouldn’t like himself either, so he presses on. “Of _course_  I’d still like you, you dumbass. I’ve been putting up with your shit for too long not to.”

Woohyun’s smile is as bright and snaggle-toothed and wide as it always is when he pulls Sunggyu into his lap, when he twines his arms under Sunggyu’s shirt and against his skin, when he drops his head to lean against Sunggyu’s chest, and Sunggyu thinks his heart might explode from how fast it’s beating. “So you’re stuck with me then, right? No take backs? Forever period?”

Sunggyu hopes the stern frown he’s trying to give doesn’t crack when he winds his fingers through Woohyun’s hair again, patting it down and trying to untangle all the knots in the strands. “Well, you’re the only one I’ll allow to make so many jokes about me without dying, so you better be grateful. But I swear, if you do anything shitty and stupid again, it’s gonna be your head, alright?”

And Sunggyu knows that the sheer, unadulterated happiness he’s feeling isn’t just his, knows that all the joy and relief and even that one feeling he hadn’t dared put a name to before aren’t only his alone, knows that they’re really going to be fine. he doesn’t stop himself from dropping a kiss onto Woohyun’s forehead when Woohyun beams up at him and says, “Guess you’re mine, then,” when Woohyun reaches up hesitantly to press his rough and calloused fingers against the mark in the juncture of Sunggyu’s neck, when he leans into the touch like he’s never felt anything better in his entire life, when it feels like the entire world’s shifted into place, when he’s here with someone who’d made him hate and love and feel everything in between, when now, everything’s _right_.

 

They’ve all completely moved out now. It’s different now, now that they’re all older and want their own spaces to themselves. Sunggyu understands, he’d be stupid if he didn’t, but sometimes he misses having them around—misses Sungjong’s cheeky aegyo, misses Myungsoo’s dry humor, misses Sungyeol’s neverending magic tricks, misses Howon’s cutting wit, misses Dongwoo’s infectious enthusiasm. It’s why Sunggyu is glad for those times when they can get together just to grab dinner and catch up—he misses them, he really does.

There’s just one person he doesn’t quite miss—doesn’t miss at all, in fact. He nearly trips when he opens the door of his apartment, the shoes in the doorway nearly sending him sprawling across the landing, and there’s a few choice curses on his lips when Woohyun’s there in front of him, his arms outstretched. Sunggyu narrows his eyes at him, kicking the shoes off to the side, and he revels in the way Woohyun nearly dives for the shoes in an attempt to save them from dirt.

“Serves you right,” Sunggyu mutters under his breath, dropping his messenger bag on the ground, and he watches as Woohyun slinks back to the couch where he’d been sitting with a notebook in his lap. He pads over to the couch, and Woohyun scoots over so Sunggyu can lean against his side. “What are you doing?” 

Woohyun pauses, tilting his head to the side so he can study Sunggyu’s face, and Sunggyu realizes that the notebook in his hands is the same one from back then. “Oh—sorry, I’ll leave you to it, I have to unpack my stuff from today, anyway—”

Woohyun reaches up for Sunggyu’s wrist before he can get too far, and he tugs just slightly. “Stay,” he says, and Sunggyu does. He makes himself comfortable, pulling a pillow into his lap and nestling his head against Woohyun’s arm. Woohyun flips the notebook pages until he gets to one that’s in the middle somewhere, and he hands it out to Sunggyu, his eyes expectant. “Here you go.” 

Sunggyu eyes the pages, not quite reading it, but just scanning the page. Woohyun’s written a lot, and it looks like a song. Sunggyu wonders just when Woohyun had written this, just what he’d written it about—just whom he’d written it for. “Sing it for me,” Sunggyu says, and he watches the way Woohyun’s ears redden and his cheeks flush, and he knows that this was the best answer he could’ve given.

Woohyun clears his throat before he starts, and in that split second, where Woohyun’s thumb is rubbing small circles into Sunggyu’s palm and Sunggyu’s idly tracing a pattern into Woohyun’s sweatpants, where they’re curled around and into each other like parentheses, where the bond is thrumming between them with an intensity that almost makes his head spin, Sunggyu realizes, finally, that all of those times he’d left like he was missing something in his life, all of those nights spent yearning and longing, all of the days he’d spent wondering just what was _wrong_ —all of that had led him here to this, to _now_.

 

(an unknown strength is pulling me forward  
i’m drawing you in with my fingertips  
i’m moving as if i’m being pulled  
where am i?)

**Author's Note:**

> feedback and concrit are, as always, welcomed and appreciated! ♡


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